Re: Adobe *Maker (was: Word vs. Pagemaker)

[Sarah Carroll <sarahc -at- INDIGO -dot- IE>]

Hi Alison,

At 12:55 14/01/98 +0000, Alison Bloor wrote:
>I'd also be interested to know how PageMaker and Framemaker compare
>when it comes to exporting/re-importing text for translation:

PageMaker is a lot easier (in general) if you're not using a
particular tool to help with this. But PageMaker's import filter has
a bug - it does not import index entries which contain extended
characters, which for many people renders it pretty useless.

FrameMaker MIF exported text is virtually impossible for translators
to work with, but you can use The S-Tagger for FrameMaker, see
http://www.trados.com
for information, or e-mail me sarahc -at- indigo -dot- ie for more info.
The S-Tagger converts FrameMaker MIF to a tagged text format
suitable for translation in either the traditional manner, or using
a Computer Aided Translation system. All formatting is retained
when the files are converted back to their original format.

>- is the exported text easy to work with or does the translator have
>to pick his/her way between fiddly markup?

Most marked up formats are actually more intrusive than the
Ventura ASCII mark-up!

You may want to look at using a Computer Aided Translation
system, or Translation Memory system. There are many on the
market, do a net search for Translation Memory and you'll get
a plethora of products.

I don't know that changing tools will necessarily make the translation
process less painful. Your process will be what has the major impact
on that. Most translation service providers will handle any tool, even if
most prefer FrameMaker. You'll need to look at how much time migrating
from Corel Ventura to another app. will affect your process, training,
productivity, etc. rather than making that decision based on the translation.

Best,
Sarah
sarahc -at- indigo -dot- ie